In another post, I looked at The Power of Purpose and why it is important for everyone to have a purpose. Often referred to as a personal mission statement, it can provide direction when determining your goals, fuel your passions and help you make decisions.
At the end of the post, I asked “What’s your Why?”
If you need a little help in answering this question, there are many tools out there to support you.
At a seminar I recently attended on this topic, I was introduced to the following, which asks you to complete this sentence.
Your Contribution is what you do. As Stephen R. Covey suggests in The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, the best place to work out what this is, is with the end in mind. As in, what do you want to achieve in your life? What do you want to be known for?
Your Impact is your Why. What will be the outcome from your Contribution? What will it achieve?
Take a couple of minutes to have a think about how you would finish this sentence.
Doing this will get you thinking about the words you would use to fill in the gaps for Contribution and Impact.
The best answer will be the one that comes most naturally. Your finished statement should be true to you and provide a sense of the type of person you are. A good exercise to test it is to say it to someone who can provide you with honest feedback.
Once you have determined your Why, you can then start to share it so people know what your purpose is and how they may be able to help you achieve it. You can return to it as a focus point when making decisions and it should provide you with motivation.
And in case you are interested, my Why is “to help people achieve their goals so they maximise their potential and live their best self.”